Food Industry
Trauma for Slaughterhouse workers
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and high rates of suicide are common among those who have worked in slaughterhouses. If a pig came and nuzzled you like a puppy, would you be able to kill it moments later? This is one of the scenarios faced by slaughterhouse workers on a daily basis and it’s incredibly traumatic. They kill hundreds – sometimes thousands – of voiceless animals each day. This leads to a variety of psychological disorders and has also been connected to an increase in crime rates including higher incidents of domestic abuse, as well as drug and alcohol abuse. Please watch this moving video by Generation Vegan to learn more.
Natives and their Staple Food
While quinoa is a drought-resistant crop that requires minimal water to grow, it has harmful effects on the same people that grow it. Quinoa is primarily grown in Peru and Bolivia and is a staple food and source of income of their natives. However, most of this quinoa (about 90%) is now exported, leaving Bolivians with very less for themselves or nothing at all. The very people who grow quinoa are now unable to feed their families. Their children have already started to show signs of malnutrition as the Bolivians have started to substitute quinoa with rice and noodles. Watch this video by Channel 4 news to learn more about how quinoa exports are resulting in malnutrition among the locals.
World Hunger
The world produces enough food to feed the entire population, yet more than 840 million people go hungry every day. Consumption of meat is one of the primary reasons for this problem. It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of edible animal flesh. According to the USDA and the United Nations, using an acre of land to raise cattle for slaughter yields 20 pounds of usable protein. That same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein if soybeans were grown instead! Watch this informative video by ‘Dawn Moncrief’ which explains the link between meat consumption and world hunger.
Human Toll of Climate Change
Climate Refugees
Climate refugees are those forced to leave their homes due to the effects of climate change. Extreme weather makes parts of our planet uninhabitable, causing exodus of the local population. According to UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, an annual average of  21.5 million people  have been forcibly displaced by weather-related events such as floods, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures since 2008. These numbers are expected to surge in the coming decades, with forecasts from international thinktank the IEP predicting that 1.2 billion people  could be displaced globally by 2050 due to climate change and natural disasters. Watch this trailer of the documentary Climate Refugees by the United Nations to learn more.
Water Scarcity
Climate change and extreme weather events make water more scarce and polluted. This in turn threatens sustainable development, biodiversity, and people’s access to water and sanitation. Energy-intensive water pumping, transportation, and treatment, as well as water-intensive agriculture for food production, particularly meat and for crops used as biofuels, further exacerbate water scarcity as we scramble to keep up with the needs of our growing global population. Every day, over 1000 children under 5 die from diseases linked to inadequate water sanitation and hygiene. By 2040, almost 1 in 4 children will live in areas of extremely high water stress. Watch this informative video by VICE news to learn more.
Impact of Pollution
WHO data shows that almost the entire global population breathes air that exceeds WHO guideline limits and contains high levels of pollutants, with low- and middle-income countries suffering from the highest exposures. Air quality is closely linked to the earth’s climate and ecosystems globally. The combined effects of ambient air pollution and household air pollution is associated with 7 million premature deaths annually. Fossil fuel air pollution is responsible for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide and thousands of children under the age 5 die each year due to respiratory infections attributed to fossil fuel pollution. Learn more through this video by Arirang News.
Human Toll of Extreme Weather
Climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions is a big cause of erratic and extreme weather events. Global warming leads to an increase in the intensity and periodicity of heat waves. This leads to an increased possibility of drought, which in turn results in dry terrain, causing wildfires. Global warming also increases atmospheric water vapor, causing heavy rain and snowstorms. This causes sea level rise, increasing the probability of flooding and even the intensity of hurricanes and cyclones. In the last five years, the number of weather events have gone up by 7%, and weather-related deaths have increased 35% from 2017. Please watch this video from Science on a Sphere to learn more.
Mothers and Children
Right to Childhood
The rights of a child include being raised in a nurturing, loving family, with basic needs like food, primary health care, and formal education, protected from abuse and neglect. Children should be protected from kidnapping and trafficking. While many children are pushed into child labor in low-income families, many others are neglected or mistreated by their parents/caregivers and this often goes unnoticed. Around 4M children are abused while 7M children are neglected each year. This damages their physical and mental health leading to a detrimental effect on society as a whole. Watch this by Medical Centric to learn more about the types, signs, and treatment of child abuse.
Trauma for Mothers
Rights to body, birth, nursing, and caring for a child are fundamental for any mother. Dairy, meat, leather, egg and pedigree-pet industries are built on deprivation of these rights, where mothers only live for ¼ of their natural lifespan, used as baby- and milk-making machines, raped every time. Their babies are snatched away, forced to live in horror, and killed brutally. Rights of a child to care, love and safe childhood don't exist for these poor creatures. By making this process normal in our day-to-day life, we are subconsciously tuning our brains to violate others’ bodies.
Watch this video by Now This News and decide - if this is done to humans, is it not wrong?